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Working Wednesday: How’s Your Turkey?

Okay, look, I’m writing a novel and making pie and winding yarn and cleaning house and trying to remember to get my bulbs in the ground (I KNOW IT’S LATE) so while I am sorry about getting this up late, I’m not that sorry. It’s the freaking holiday. ARGH.

What are you doing? Besides baking pie if you’re an American. (And thank you, Libby, for that recipe on the back of your can. It never fails.)

21 thoughts on “Working Wednesday: How’s Your Turkey?”

Disposed of the protea and cleaned the HUGE three-foot vase in which they reposed. Made ratatouille for sharing potluck tomorrow. Watered all the gardens after first clearing the dog toys. Backyard gratitude chakra yoga under the moonlight and with old friends.

It’s actually better to wait until November to plant tulips, in the UK at any rate: you can claim it’s down to your gardening expertise that you’ve waited this long.

I’m having a week off to recover from the shock of finding a house to buy after two years of being in limbo. I’ve been too wiped out to do anything apart from read novels and gather ideas for my new garden. I’m coming out of it, I hope. I’m going to look for colour inspiration for a garden mood board in town today; and tomorrow I’m going to a seminar on landscape photography in Birmingham. Then my edit’s due back from the authors, and hopefully I’ll get myself back in gear again.

I’m getting a new dishwasher so I had to empty the cupboards where the pipes are. I cannot believe how much stuff I had — baking and pots and pans.

But it’s the adhesive backed shelf paper I put down many years ago that was my challenge to peel off. I’ve always loved the blue and white checks, but my sister said it was a mistake because of the adhesive. Heh, someone has to be right.

Anyhoo, after trying many things, I finally got enough of the adhesive off to make me happy.

Now I’m waiting for the delivery, and then I’ll rearrange and cull some stuff.

I’m on my way to my goal of cleaning every cupboard, drawer and closet in my home. And I appear to be chatty this morning. Sorry for the run-on. Raise your hand if your eyes glazed over on the second paragraph.

Cooking stuff creeps up on you. In my moving back into my kitchen I actually decided I did not need 10 different pie pans. Of course, I kept 6 of them despite the fact that in my entire adult life of many, many, many decades I have never made more than two pies at once.

I have two pyrex with tabs on the rim which make them easy to lift which are my favorite, two regular pyrex pans for when we are going someplace and I want to take a pie pan that it won’t bother me if it is lost or broken, and two handmade, hand-painted ceramic pie pans that are beautiful and are my husband’s favorite pans to use. Oh, plus a set of graduated size french tart pans with removable bottoms.

My turkey, er puppy, apparently gets separation anxiety and poops in his crate when he’s scared. No water fitness for me today! Poor little guy, he’s doing so well it’s easy to forget he’s only about 10 weeks old. He learned how to climb the basement stairs today.

I like making pies but my husband decided 10 years ago that would be his forte and spent about a year deciding the best combination of pie crust ingredients and technique. And he really does do an excellent pie crust. Mine was very good but I made it in the Cuisinart and it really isn’t as good as his hand mixed one. And if I go to make a pie crust now it is a serious breach of protocol (Why didn’t you ask me. I would have made it for you. etc). So I no longer make pie crusts myself. Of course, I can’t wander off because I am expected to know the answer to such things as: the edge is too crumbly, how do I fix it.

I hope everyone had a good day whether it was Officially Thanksgiving -or not.

It was just Joe and I . Every time I fix a holiday meal I forget something. This year it was the redskin potatoes and I forgot to get the deviled eggs out. We ate the eggs for dessert. One year I baked the salad. But that is another story.

Due to unforeseen circumstances we stayed home rather than travel to family a couple hours away. We missed them but managed to pick up unfrozen turkey parts and fresh cranberries, and pulled out the wedding china, and had a good day. With LOTS of napping.

Perfect, perfect Thanksgiving. My husband made the pies while I sat upstairs in front of the fire reading. Then dinner at my friends with her family, son and daughter, other friends and 3 perfectly behaved granddaughters, 11, 9 and 1, all adorable. Spectacular food and wine and conversation. And I came home with the left over mashed potatoes which I used to make a fisherman’s pie. Best Thanksgiving ever.